breakfast or skip

languageSteph

I have always been torn on this one. No matter what I eat for breakfast, I am hungry early for lunch-its almost like it doesnt register in my body. Even with loq carb breakfasts like eggs, veg n lentils. Funny thing is that when I just have water I am fine. I have Hashimotos, so talking abt eating breakfast to get ur metabolism going is pointless cause mine is lost in the woods somewhere. Saw a post in the forums where they said they fast 11pm to 11am daily, that sounds good to me, is that healthy?

languageSteph

Oh, and I could use some more clean eating, motivated partnerz too:)

SanDiegoMG

Some trainers have told me to skip. They follow this 8 to 16 rule, called intermittent fasting. Have all of your food intake for the day in an 8 hr period. If you get 8 hrs of sleep, eat your first meal 5 hrs after you wake up and have your last meal 3 hrs before you go to bed.

JenMc14

If you're hungry, eat. If not, don't, and wait until you're hungry.

shamcd

I've always had issues with breakfast. Regardless of macro structure, if I eat breakfast, I'm always super-hungry the rest of the day. If I skip breakfast, my appetite is on a much more even keel for the remainder of the day. It's been like this since I was a child, so I just go with it. And for reference, my day starts at 3:00 AM with a cup of coffee, with lunch (my first meal of the day) at 1:00 PM and dinner around 6:00 PM. Weekends are a bit different, but this is a typical Mon-Fri cycle for me. Experiment with your meal frequency and times, that's really the only way you'll be able to find what works for you.

I_Will_End_You

I rarely eat breakfast. Eating breakfast doesn't "get your metabolism going", that is a myth. Your metabolism is always going, or else you'd be dead. If you don't want to eat breakfast, don't. It's all about personal preference. It's not going to effect your weight loss or health.

PeachyCarol

I have Hashimoto's... it doesn't have any effect on anything other than not eating until an hour after you take your medication.

I'm like you, if I eat breakfast, it's like it flips a switch and turns on my appetite for the day. Once I started skipping it and eating later, it was much easier to control my appetite.

When I came onto MFP and read about Intermittent Fasting (what the poster upthread mentioned regarding the trainers and the 16/8 rule), I realized that I was already naturally doing that.

I now eat even LATER and in a smaller window of time, so I 18/6. Now of course, this is more than what you were asking!!

You can skip breakfast, it's fine.

Kalici

I don't eat breakfast because it ends up making me feel sick to my stomach and/or starving. I generally don't eat until I've been up at least six hours or so. I really prefer it this way, but it is definitely not for everyone.

quiksylver296

I eat "breakfast" about 10:00, lunch around 1:00, afternoon snack around 3:00 and dinner around 6:00. If I eat breakfast when I wake up, about 4:30, I am hungry again by 10:00 anyway. Seems like a waste to eat when I am not hungry, so I don't.

juggernaut1974

Completely personal preference. As long as you're able to meet your daily calorie and macro goals, timing and frequency of meals is immaterial.

xcalygrl

If you don't like eating breakfast or you find that you get hungrier when you do, then skip eating it. You don't have to eat breakfast to lose weight. Many people say it "revs" up your metabolism, but that's a myth. Your metabolism is always going unless you're dead.

canary_girl

I don't eat breakfast. I work out in the morning and any amount of food makes me want to vomit, even if it was hours before. By the time I'm done it's around 10 to 11 am, so I just have lunch. Sometimes I do have a handful of almonds or nuts in between cardio and lifting if I go home.

urloved33

I eat breakfast about 9:30 - 10:00am but I get up between 5 and 7 am

melimomTARDIS

I feel ill if I dont eat breakfast, kind of queasy/hungover feeling. So I eat breakfast every morning, however, my breakfasts are pretty light. Just a little something to settle my stomach and get me to lunch.

edited to add- I know many lifelong slim people who dont eat breakfast, ever. so I dont think the breakfast helps or hurts. Its just up to you as to what makes you feel your best.

ew_david

I went a long time not eating breakfast (still had coffee) for the same reason: I was just as hungry around 11 whether I ate something at 7 or not. So I started skipping it in order to have more calories for lunch and dinner. I lost the bulk of my weight that way.

auddii

I tend to do better eating more calories later in the day. I have coffee, and then around 9am or so I have a spoonful of peanut butter. Then an hour later, I have my protein shake. Then a small lunch.

Personally, making breakfast more of a snack and a little later helps. I've also just skipped it. Find what works for you; meal timing doesn't matter.

Josalinn

If I don't eat breakfast and work out, I feel light headed.

I find that if I eat breakfast at 6 and work out at 6:30 or so I'm not really hungry until 9 when I get to work, at which point I have yogurt. If I don't work out and eat breakfast at 8, I am still hungry at 9.

peachyfuzzle

Considering I work twelve hours per day, and don't get home until nearly 8pm each night, I would be severely undereating if I didn't have breakfast because I don't have a lot of time to eat more than a couple of meals.

I generally end up pretty short of my calorie goal as it is now that I'm being mindful of my intake.

Really though, it is whatever works for you as long as you stay in a deficit. Remember, trainers are not nutritionists.

languageSteph

Holy cow, this is awesome stuff. I used to skip it but then I had some health issues that led me to a nutritionist who had me eating every few hours. And I started to gain , no kidding right. The supps she rec were fab n I still take those but I had to step back and reeval a lot of things. Think I am going to do the skip breakfast thing again and see how it goes. I wonder what it is that makes some of us hungrier when we eat breakfast. This is all so fascinating ...when its not frustrating.

brielizabeth2013

You need at least three meals a day. That's important. Whether you skip breakfast or not

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nikkib0103

I eat breakfast. I am not pleasant when hungry and I always wake up hungry. Maybe because I dream about food a lot. When I was younger I could skip breakfast and not have lunch til 3 with no ill effects. I find it harder to skip meals or eat late now.

chrisdavey

brielizabeth2013 wrote: »

You need at least three meals a day. That's important. Whether you skip breakfast or not

You don't NEED 3 meals per day.

It is however, in your best interests to spread out protein feedings throughout the day as repeated smaller protein feedings (which meet the minimum leucine threshold of 3g) will stimulate MPS more so than larger infrequent feedings. This helps maintain LBM in a fat loss phase, and gain lbm in a bulking phase.

I'm not saying you need to eat 8 times per day for optimal progress though (previously IFer, now just eat whenever hungry. Sometimes, that means eating breakfast, sometimes that means midnight snacks

robw235

For me, breakfast is an important meal. I am taking care to make sure it's high protein and fiber. Eat around the same time each morning (6:00) usually around 300 calories, and typically including some whole grains and berries. Coffee with a tiny bit of fat free milk. This morning it's steel cut oats and blueberries with some ground flax seed mixed in. A meal like this, supplemented with plenty of water will keep me satisfied until lunch at noon.

PeachyCarol

brielizabeth2013 wrote: »

You need at least three meals a day. That's important. Whether you skip breakfast or not

Nope. You need a certain number of calories a day. How many meals you break them down into is entirely up to personal preference.

rybo

It is perfectly fine to skip breakfast. I am one of those people that gets very hungry if i eat breakfast. I can go all the way to lunch without even blinking when I don't eat in the morning

Foamroller

I get very hungry when having breakfast, even if it's a protein/fat composition. Carbs even worse. So I just skip the first meal and start eating somewhere around 14-19 pm. It retrained my grazing habits better than eating small meals all the time. But we're all different. I can still sustain working out fasted or fed eating this way.

If I get cold during the daily fast, I take 1 portion of bouillon or some other salt source and 10 squats

Do what works for YOU. Experiment

4legsRbetterthan2

I dont eat breakfast, and I don't believe those people who say you have to....

RoxieDawn

If I eat breakfast (early or later in the morning) it turns a signal on in my brain that I must eat and keep eating. By lunch I think I am starving. But if I just drink some water or coffee, my brains signals do not do anything regarding food.

Really strange how this works.. but I had to learn to balance this because I could start shoving down food early and not stop until after dinner..

I do a small breakfast and stop until lunch now and only around 300 calories each meal. It was and still is a work in progress plus exercising more put a different perspective on how I eat and when I eat now..

Edited to add: IF really does help as well. I actually workout fasted around 10:30 and start eating at 11:30 and stop 5:00 p.m. - big difference.

lishie_rebooted

brielizabeth2013 wrote: »

You need at least three meals a day. That's important. Whether you skip breakfast or not

False.

msullivan1979

shamcd wrote: »

I've always had issues with breakfast. Regardless of macro structure, if I eat breakfast, I'm always super-hungry the rest of the day. If I skip breakfast, my appetite is on a much more even keel for the remainder of the day. It's been like this since I was a child, so I just go with it. And for reference, my day starts at 3:00 AM with a cup of coffee, with lunch (my first meal of the day) at 1:00 PM and dinner around 6:00 PM. Weekends are a bit different, but this is a typical Mon-Fri cycle for me. Experiment with your meal frequency and times, that's really the only way you'll be able to find what works for you.

I am the same way. I start at 3 AM with coffee only. I each lunch around noon and it is still a really small meal. I eat 75% of my daily calories after 5PM. If I start my day with breakfast (weekends usually) I will be eating all day and find it hard to stay within my daily limits. I just do extra exercise on the weekends to make up for it or go a little over. Lost 50 lbs so far so I guess its working for me.